Advertisement: Here's how to enjoy printing from your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad using Kodak's range of printers and apps.

One of the great things about using an iOS device, over a traditional laptop or computer, is the incredible freedom that comes from having powerful computer-like gadget like the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch everywhere you go.

In fact, these iOS devices are slowly taking over the technology market, and Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS Software at Apple Inc, recently announced that Apple has sold over 365 million iOS devices.

Apple often refers to iOS devices as ‘Post-PC’, suggesting that they’ve moved beyond the traditional computer and into a brave new world of always-connected portable devices. One of the downsides to owning an iOS device, however, is that it’s not always obvious how to integrate it with traditional computer equipment, like a printer. The traditional ports (such as USB or Firewire) have all been replaced with wireless networking functionality.

Thankfully Kodak has put in a lot of legwork to make it easy to print all kinds of things from an iOS device with its range of printers. Take Kodak’s new Hero range of All-in-One printers, for example. These come packed with a variety of different features and services all geared towards making it as easy as possible to print wirelessly directly from your iOS device.

One key feature is integration with Google’s Cloud Print service. Google Cloud Print enables you to print out all kinds of documents, from word processor and spreadsheet documents, to emails and web pages. Simply sign up for the Google Cloud Print service and set up your Kodak printer. You don’t even need a computer to set up a Cloud Ready Printer (such as the Kodak Hero All-in-One range or Kodak ESP Office 2710). As such it’s perfect for those users who are looking to replace the traditional home computer with an iPhone or iPad.

Once your printer is set up, you can use the print2go feature on Mobile Google Apps (http://m.google.com) to send the document to the printer. If you prefer to use a dedicated app, then install PrintCentral Pro from the App Store (http://mobile.eurosmartz.com), which enables you to print documents using Google Cloud Print.

If you are on the same wireless network as your Kodak Hero All-in-One printer you can print documents directly using Kodak’s Pic Flick apps.

A new addition to Kodak’s stable of apps is Kodak Pic Flick HD for iPad, which enables you to create photo cards, collages, and prints with fun features such as captions and speech bubbles, then send them through a local wireless network directly to a print.

Kodak Pic Flick HD can also identify colours in photos and generate matching borders for framing.

The app is free to download and will be available in the app store shortly, so iPad owners with Kodak printers should keep an eye out for it.

Kodak's Pic Flick app enables you to print wirelessly from an iOS device

If you can’t wait that long (or have an iPhone or iPod touch device) then the Kodak Pic Flick app for iOS is already available (and runs on an iPad too). This app works with all Kodak printers from the KODAK ESP 9200, 7200, 5200 Series and ESP Office 6100 series onwards, including the Hero range and new ESP 1.2 and ESP 3.2.

Kodak Pic Flick enables you to send photos from the Camera Roll on your iOS device directly to a Kodak printer, and you can create frames and choose different print sizes.

Another app that Kodak is developing for iOS is its Document Print App which will enable you to wirelessly print documents as well as web pages directly to a cloud-enabled Kodak All-in-One printer.

This will make it even easier to print out web pages, Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, text and files, plus most image files, from your iOS device.

Kodak has gone out of its way to make it really easy for owners of iOS devices (like the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch) to print out photographs and documents. This is great for owners of Kodak printers because it enables users to carry on using a printer even with a mobile device. And there are plenty instances where iOS users still need to print out items such as airport boarding passes, concert tickets, emails and work documents. And the integration with Google Cloud Print means you don’t even need to be on the same network as your printer to print out the document – a service that truly gets the most from the mobile aspect of iOS devices.

Add to this the fact that Kodak printers are designed to have lower running costs (in the form of replacement ink) than printers from other manufactures, and you can see why Kodak has the edge on printers for the Post-PC world.